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Healing Affirmations 

OR 

Getting Well and Keeping Well 

BY 

GEORGE L. PERIN 

AUTHOR OF 

" The Sunny Side of Life " 

" How I Was Healed of Paralysis " 

"Why, Fadder.Why?" 



THE OPTIMIST PUBLISHING COMPANY 
BROOKLINE 47, MASS. 




40> 



Copyright, 1921 
By The Optimist Publishing Company 



Published June, 1921 



JUL 11 '2 



Printed by 

T. O. Metcalf Company 

Boston 



©CS.A617758 
-He J 



To 
The Best Ever 



ACKNOWLEDGMENT 

Grateful acknowledgment is made to Little, Brown 
& Co. for fragmentary selections of my own, 
printed in Mrs. Perm's books, " The Optimist's 
Good-Night" and "Sunlit Days;" also for several 
brief poems, under the heading, "A Group of 
Healing Poems." 



The Law : 

Desires when expressed in 
forceful affirmations are 
dynamic mind forces. 



CONTENTS Paee 

The Law 5 

Foreword 9 

Preface 11 

Affirmation and Concentration . . . . . 13 

Practicing Affirmations 18 

'The Silence" — What it Means and How to 

Enter. 19 

Interlude 21 

Affirmations 22-64 

You and Auntie Doleful ...... 65 

Hints on Health 71 

Some Health Don'ts 76 

Partial Breathing .77 

Bigger than Anything that Can Happen to Him 81 

Poise and Power 85 

A State of Mind ......... 88 

The Slave of a Clock 89 

Forget It, or the Never Mind Philosophy . 92 

Healing Scriptures 95 

A Group of Healing Poems . . . . 105-1 12 
Healing Service (For the Cure of Fear) . 113 
Healing Service (For the Cure of Evil Emo- 
tions) 115 

Healing Service (General) 17 

Healing Aspiration 119 

A Healing Prayer 1 20 

A Healing Blessing for Close of Service . . 121 



FOREWORD 

The conclusions set forth in this book have been 
reached through studies engaged in at intervals of a 
long and rather severe illness, and yet my interest 
in so-called psychic or metaphysical healing dates 
back many years. Certainly twenty years ago my 
attention was called to the fact that the so-called 
transcendental movement strongly hinted, espe- 
cially Emerson's "The Over-Soul," at the modern 
psychological conclusions involved in the New 
Thought. 

Later, I read with great interest Henry Wood, 
Prentice Mulford, Horatio Dresser, and still later 
Mrs. Eddy's books. Quite recently I have been 
helped by the reading of Judge Thomas Troward's 
Edinboro lectures on Psychology, as well as "The 
Law of Mind in Action" by Fenwicke L. Holmes 
and "Healing Currents" by Walter DeVoe. 

My debt of gratitude to all these is something, 
though they have been by no means equally useful. 
But through such studies I have reached the 

[ 9] 



conclusion of the validity of metaphysical healing. 
But in saying this, I do not wish to be understood 
as having espoused the correctness of any one of the 
numerous cults, whether it be one of the various 
schools of New Thought, such as Mental Healing, 
Spiritual Healing, the Immanuel Movement, or 
Christian Science. 

My own conviction is that whoever wishes to 
practice metaphysical healing will do well to study 
all these various forms, which do not differ funda- 
mentally from each other in philosophy, but only 
in the details of applying the philosophy, and take 
out of each what will help him most. 

I sincerely believe in metaphysical or psychical 
healing, whether with the patient present with the 
healer or absent. I have made this book with the 
single object in view of being useful to the afflicted. 
To this end, may I not hope that this little book will 
be of some service, both for private use and in 
public services. 



10 



PREFACE 

In making this little book, my one desire has 
been to be of service to those who long to be healed. 
When I had become convinced in my own illness that 
I could appeal to something within, I longed with 
an almost infinite longing to know how to express 
my desires and to make them effective. I purchased 
book after book in the hope that I could find some- 
body who would teach me how to express "Healing 
Affirmations." While I did find help, it was too 
widely scattered throughout various books. Finally 
I became convinced that affirmations of my own 
were better for me than any I could find ready made. 
Nevertheless, I still believe that the young student 
of metaphysical healing will find help in having a 
few affirmations formulated for him. All other 
matter in this book beside the affirmations may be 
regarded as incidental and the affirmations as 
fundamental. In formulating the affirmations, I 
had first to formulate a law to which each affirmation 
should be made to conform. The law may be 

[ 11 ] 



expressed thus: Desires when expressed in powerful 
affirmations become Dynamic Mind Forces. This 
may not be the most felicitous expression of the 
law, but it will at least make the purpose of affirma- 
tions sufficiently clear. 

While in my first planning of this book I had in 
mind almost entirely its private use, later it occurred 
to me that some use might be made of it in public 
services. Such use will be suggested by a few 
services in the back part of the book. 

Another thing perhaps ought to be explained. It 
will be noticed that I have used the personal pronoun 
all the way through. This has been due to the fact 
that it was difficult for me to remember that I was 
writing a book at all. The whole thing has been so 
personal that there seemed a fitness in the use of the 
personal pronoun, and I hope you will be able to 
remove the apparent egotism and to excuse the 
apparent informality by just imagining that I am 
talking with you. 

Let me again express the hope that this little 
book may serve a useful purpose among those who 
are longing for help. 



[ 12] 



AFFIRMATION AND CONCENTRATION 

To affirm means, literally, to declare to be true, 
and to concentrate means to bring all the rays of 
one's thought to a focus of intensity; thus, concen- 
tration brings all the scattered forces of the mind to 
a common center of attention. 

Affirmation is but a form of prayer. It is prayer 
without formal petition. The musician makes what 
he calls "Songs without Words;" so, affirmation is 
prayer without supplication, but it is prayer none 
the less. It is, or should be, when joined with 
concentration, the most earnest form of prayer. 
But you will notice that concentration may have 
either a constructive or a destructive effect. For 
example: A man may concentrate on his weaknesses, 
his worries, his diseases, his cares, his sorrows, his 
losses; but if he concentrates on his fears and hatreds 
and worries, he destroys the harmony of the mind 
and body and renders his whole organism unhappy 
and inefficient, and so destroys all prospect of 
peace and success and prosperity. Now, just 

[ 13 ] 



because such negative concentration is common, we 
need affirmation of a positive character to counteract 
the negative influences that are going on within us 
and around us all the time. Thus it will be seen 
that one who makes a larger affirmation in a positive 
way and concentrates upon it, sets in operation 
machinery which v/ill cure the ills of life; hence this 
Book of Affirmations. Your affirmation becomes a 
prayer to the Divine Intelligence within you, and 
when you concentrate upon that affirmation it 
becomes a positive strength in favor of the object of 
your desire. 

It may well be asked why we have prepared so 
many different affirmations in so small a compass. 
My answer is similar to that made by one boy to 
another boy when he asked, "Why are there so many 
girls in the world?' ' The answer v/as, * 'Because there 
are so many boys." One affirmation appeals to one 
temperament or one cast of mind and perhaps not 
at all to other people. These may be called simply 
sample affirmations designed to help realization, and 
not one in all the list provided in this little book may 
be the one to appeal to you. In any event, it is 
better to make your own affirmation as you feel 
profoundly the need. 

[ 14 ] 



Let us suppose that you wake up some morning 
with terrible congestion in your throat. The even- 
ing of that same day you are under engagement to 
sing; it seems absolutely impossible for you. You 
are face to face with the problem " Where shall I 
find relief?" Probably not one of these that I have 
prepared as samples of how to affirm and how to 
concentrate will seem to appeal to you. Yet you 
must have help. What will you do? You may say, 
"I am Health. God's invigorating spirit is with 
me. It is working in all the nerves and cells of my 
vocal organs." Here is an intense affirmation of 
prayer. You forget the form of words. Your mind 
leaps all connecting particles and holds on to the 
concentrated idea and you find yourself saying: 
"Health. Vitality. Vocal Organs. God." Here 
is an intense concentration which may be a thousand 
times better for you than anything that I have fur- 
nished. On the other hand, under other circum- 
stances, some one of these sample affirmations 
may be just the thing you need and may be extremely 
useful. 

Some one may ask, "How many times shall one 
repeat an affirmation?" I answer, "Repeat it until 
you get what you desire." It may be once, it may 

[ 15] 



be a thousand times. The point in your goal is 
realization. You must hold to that and make 
repetition of your affirmation until realization comes, 
and do not be discouraged, if you are sure you are 
right. Keep on affirming, a thousand times if 
necessary, until you get what you desire. Finally, 
I cannot urge too strongly that you shall not be 
discouraged if a miracle is not wrought upon you 
in a moment of time. "God moves in a mysterious 
way His wonders to perform.' ' All I can say is you 
must not lose your grip of faith in the Divine 
Intelligence within you. He will surely manifest if 
you do not become "Weary in well-doing.' ' 

Let me give you a chapter from my own experience. 
I made this affirmation, — "I am Vitality." It was 
not easy to see how, with an apparently impotent 
leg and an impotent arm, I could be "Vitality," but 
day after day I kept making this affirmation until 
Vitality became Reality, and I began to feel and then 
to acquire power and so came at last the realization 
which I had been affirming. 

But do not deceive yourself by turning your 
mouth into an automatic machine repeating words 
that remind one of the manner in which some 
formal church men repeat the Lord's Prayer, so 

[ 16] 



rapidly and with so little thought that it reminds 
one of an automatic electric hammer that makes 
one indistinguishable blur of sound. Such affirma- 
tion is worse than none, because it not only does not 
get the patient anywhere, but it makes a mockery of 
his own faith. 



I 17 



PRACTICING AFFIRMATIONS 

To make affirmations anything more than mere 
words or "lingo," you should remember that they 
are subject to the 

Law of cause and effect, or 
to state it more clearly, thus: 

Desires expressed in forceful affirmations are 
dynamic mind forces. 

Remembering this law, repeat the following: 

I think health — I think strength — I think vitality. 

(A moment's silence) 
I breathe health — I breathe strength — I breathe 
vitality. 

(A moment's silence) 

I feel health — I feel strength — I feel vitality. 
(A moment's silence) 

I am health— I am strength — I am vitality. 
(A moment's silence) 

I am a temple of the living God. 

Do not forget the law enunciated above: 
"Desires expressed in forceful affirmations are 
dynamic mind forces." 

I 18] 



"THE SILENCE" 
WHAT IT MEANS AND HOW TO ENTER 

The so-called " silence/ ' as used by those who prac- 
tice metaphysical healing, rests not only in logic and 
common sense, but also upon the teaching of the 
Scriptures. By a simple test, one can easily con- 
vince himself that mental and spiritual power may 
be stored by the simple device of shutting out the 
world and keeping quiet, while Jesus said, "When 
thou prayest, enter into thy chamber and shut the 
door/' In other words, "be quiet.*' 

Yet to the beginner in the practice of meta- 
physical healing, it may be wise to give a hint or 
two about "going into the silence." 

For at least fifteen minutes each day, — better 
fifteen minutes in the morning and fifteen minutes 
in the evening, go into a quiet room alone, take an 
easy position and be still. It will be good if you 
accompany your quiet mood with closed eyes and 
deep regular breathing. Soon you will have a sense 
of deep peace with all the world, life's cares will slip 
away, life's worries be forgotten, and you will say 
"God is in me and all around me." You will feel a 
new sense of power. When you have this deep 
sense of peace and the conscious feeling that you are 

I 19] 



in immediate touch with God, then ask God for 
what you desire. Do not ask with the feeling that 
you may or may not receive, nor with the feeling 
that somewhere, sometime, if God gets time, He will 
hear you, but with the faith that God hears and 
answers now. Jesus promised: "Whatsoever ye 
shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive." 
And again he said, "According to your faith, be it 
unto you/' 

Of course, it is wise to fortify yourself in any 
emergency or for healing another or for self-healing 
by going into the silence. But if every man, woman 
and child in the world, quite independent of their 
religious beliefs, could practice going into the silence 
for fifteen minutes a day, it would do much, not 
only to establish peace and poise, but to destroy the 
habit of hurry and worry. Not only so, but several 
nervous diseases would go quite out of fashion and 
the doctors could drop out of their vocabulary 
several familiar terms. Moreover, men's working 
power would be vastly increased and they would 
work without becoming tired, for they would work 
with serenity and without friction. 



[20] 



INTERLUDE 

In another volume, in my story "How I was 
Healed of Paralysis," I have made it clear that the 
office of the healer is exceedingly important, but it 
is only fair to say that all through this treatment, I 
made perpetual use of these and other affirmations; 
therefore, whether with healer or for self-healing, 
such affirmations may be used with great benefit. 
But do not forget that affirmations formed by 
yourself are even more useful than any that can be 
framed for you. The following affirmations are 
designed merely as a suggestion of how to affirm 
and how to concentrate on the affirmation. 

I have learned by experience that it is desirable, 
if convenient, to lie quietly, with closed eyes, while 
these affirmations and the paragraphs with them be 
read aloud by the nurse or some friend. And no 
matter, even though the patient loses consciousness 
and goes fast asleep, let the reading continue. It 
often happens that the subconscious mind absorbs 
as successfully as does the waking mind. 

GEORGE L. PERIN. 
[ 21 1 



AFFIRMATION 

/ am \indncss and courtesy. 

In my inmost soul I love others as I do myself, arid I 
feel good-will toward all. 



Nothing is fundamentally more harmonizing than 
kindness and good will. I had almost said that a 
spirit of grouchiness and carping criticism is wholly 
inconsistent with good health. Nothing will more 
quickly bring into the soul a spirit of health than an 
affirmation of kindness and courtesy. If you want 
to remove an enemy the sure way is not to hunt a 
method of "getting even" with him, but the sure 
way is to remove him as an enemy by affirming love. 
Sometime it will be necessary to put this affirmation 
into a kindly deed, but when so expressed it is sure 
to be effective. 



[ 22] 



AFFIRMATION 

/ do not wor\ alone, 

God is wording with me every hour. 

I will do my worfy as unto God. 

I am in partnership with the living God. 



One hot July morning a boy was hoeing corn in a 
field. Apparently oblivious to the heat and indif- 
ferent as to the exactions of his toil, he whistled 
while he worked. A dust-laden traveler stopped his 
horse, drew up to the fence, and called out, "Hello, 
my lad, I am curious to know how you can hoe corn 
on a day like this and whistle while you work." 
"Well, sir," replied the lad, "I don't know, unless it is 
that I feel somehow that I am a-doin' somethin' that 
even the Almighty couldn't do if I wasn't here to 
help Him." What fine faith is that! In partnership 
with God! 

So is every honest, earnest man who does well some 
work that needs to be done. How the task is 
dignified! There is no drudgery to the man who 

feels that he is working v/ith God. 

# 
[23] 



AFFIRMATION 

God is the supreme fad in my life. 

Temporary pain or disease is of little consequence. 

God rules my life. 



Many of us make the mistake of wrong emphasis. 
We are thrown off our balance and made hysterical 
by a little pain or temporary illness, while we forget 
altogether the presence and power of God. We 
need to remember the great, supreme, fundamental 
fact of God in our own life. The merely trivial and 
temporary will not trouble us because we know that 
it is trivial and temporary. When we feel pain or 
the lack of harmony anywhere in our bodies we 
simply need by an act of faith to affirm the supremacy 
of the great creative spirit in our own lives. Let us 
express our desires in forceful affirmations and then 
remember that such desires are dynamic mind 
forces. 



[24 



AFFIRMATION 

/ am in partnership with the great creative intelligence, 



* * * 



I am one with the Father. Therefore I am heir 
to all that God has made. I have all the strength I 
need because God is all power. I am guided in all 
that I need to know because God is all wisdom. 
But in saying this, I need to remember the "silence." 
Every day I must listen and listen to the intimation 
of the divine voice. I must hear what God would 
say. 

God is all supply; therefore, I shall not want. 

God is love; therefore, I am filled with the highest 
love and affection. 

With such divine partnership I shall always be 
rich. But I shall remember that a partnership with 
God implies not merely an ownership in His riches 
but it implies also an obligation to do my part; 
hence, I shall serve the Lord with gladness. 



[25 



AFFIRMATION 

Today I shall work confidently and therefore effectively. 
I shall neither hurry nor worry, nor will I be nervous 

and irritable. 
I shall go straight ahead in the consciousness that God 

is with me and all is well. 



No man works effectively whose spirit is in a 
flutter. A fundamental condition of good work and 
good health is "quiet and confidence." One needs 
to work as if he had all the time there is, all the 
strength that is needed, all the power that the job 
requires. Such confidence can be secured only on 
condition of faith that God is present and in charge 
of all the circumstances. Thus he may take his 
mind from the contingencies and address himself to 
each stroke of the task. Thus there shall be no 
wasted effort, thus shall there be no dissipation of 
power or failure of effort, and at the end of the day 
one may work almost as freshly and effectively as 
when the day began. 



26] 



AFFIRMATION 

Joy! 

My word today is Joy! 

I meet my jr lends with joy. 

I feel joy when I see the sun. 

Joy is in the wind as it blows on my chee\. 

The bird's song is joy to me. 

All life is full of joy. 

God is life and I am one with God. 

God is all in all. 



Do not merely say joy. Feel joy in your inmost 
heart. Act joy! Do something to fill some other 
heart with joy. 

Let words and thoughts and feelings and actions 
harmonize. 



[ 27] 



AFFIRMATION 



I am a spirit of love. 
I am life eternal 



God is love. Love is Life eternal. Love springs 
spontaneously within my spirit and is the life of my 
spirit. Love is the transfiguring energy of my 
spirit. Love is the grace, beauty and perfection of 
my character. 

Here we have linked together two great dynamic 
words — love and life. Not only are they dynamic 
when linked together, but love is the great harmoniz- 
ing force of the universe. Where love abounds all 
the faculties and emotions must dwell together in 
peace and harmony, and not only must there be for 
the healing of men, the great propulsive power of 
vital force, but there must also be the "p eace which 
passeth understanding.' ' 



[ 28 



AFFIRMATION 

/ will work with a feeling of responsibility. When I 
have done the best I can, I will leave the result 
with God. 

So shall I have power and peace. 



Every man is responsible for his motive and for 
personal interest in his work, but no man is respon- 
sible for the results of his work. Let each man do 
the best he can and leave the result with God. 
Then shall he have power, because his strength shall 
not be dissipated with anxiety about results. He 
shall have peace, because he knows the results are 
with God. 



29 



AFFIRMATION 

/ hate a consciousness of the almighty goodness and 

the love of the Father. 
This consciousness is a transforming power to ma\e 

me feel /ore and kindness for every human being. 
This kindness and love a ill act to give me peace and 
health. 



Love has been well called the greatest thing in 
the world. 

It is the harmonizing emotion which binds the 
human race in one. Eecause I love and God loves, 
I may say I and the Father are one. In the absence 
of love, it is warring or conflicting emotions which 
often produces ill health. Where love is there is 
peace, hope and joy. Hence it is that one of our 
highest affirmations is to be found in the simple 
declaration, God is Love. 



I 30] 



AFFIRMATION 

/ believe in the Presence and Power of God. 
He is with me now whether I sleep or wake. 
My faith lays hold of and brings into operation His 
divine life and intelligence. 



Yet it is not enough to merely say you believe in 
God. This declaration could be made and is often 
made by a rank atheist. His declaration is purely 
intellectual or theoretical. To make this affirmation 
genuine and helpful you must feel the presence and 
power of God in you and around you. You must 
think of Him as your God now. You are not to 
think of Him as one who may be available somewhere. 
You are to think of Him as one who is available now 
and here. 



[31 ] 



AFFIRMATION 

/ will praise God from whom all blessings flow. 



Whether I have what I want or not, still what I 
have is from God, and is an evidence of His goodness. 

No greater mistake could be made by one who 
wishes to invoke the healing power of God than to 
form the habit of grumbling about what he has not. 

Grumbling is wholly negative. 

Gratitude is positive, — dynamic. 

By a great eternal law which Jesus enunciated, 
the gifts of God multiply through gratitude and use. 

It would hardly be putting the case too strongly 
to urge that every formal affirmation should be 
closed with a sentence of thanksgiving. 



[ 32] 



AFFIRMATION 

Life! Life! Life! Life! 



Do not hesitate to condense your affirmation into 
a single word. It is not the number of words that 
counts, it is the idea. At all hazards let your idea 
be dynamic, and if it is dynamic, ultimately it will 
be effective. I remember when my right side was 
totally paralyzed. For many days, when I could 
see almost no sign of life, I gave myself consolation 
and helped to win back new power by the simple 
repetition of this little word — life! life! life! life! 
But each repetition was like a great inspiring 
prayer. And how good it is to feel the life coming 
back, creeping silently from day to day over my 
whole right side, bearing new witness to the fact 
that I am a child of God. Scientific men agree that 
the body is made up of infinitesimal cells. But what 
none of them can tell is exactly how or how rapidly 
new cells are made. But I shall cling to my faith 
that God's power is expressed in the growth of 
cell-life. 

[ 33] 



AFFIRMATION 
God is life: 
I am one iciih God. 
Therefore, I am a pari of God's life. 
TheicorldisfuUoflife. 
Let life abound in me as it did in Jesus. 



Just as men lose power by losing touch with God, 
so they lose their sense of life by thinking of life as 
something apart from themselves. One needs to 
feel that the whole world is throbbing with life. One 
does not secure more abundant life by absorbing 
poisons of one . kind or another. One secures 
abundant life by keeping in touch with the great 
forces of vitality. Never forget that you are one 
with God Affirm this truth repeatedly every day. 
If you are persistent and affirm with faith, your 
faith will come into expression in more life. 



[ 34 1 



AFFIRMATION 
Treatment for Fault-Finding 

/ am in a good world. 

My world is governed by a good God. 

The people around me are kind and thoughtful. 

I will abandon all habit of fault-finding. 



There is no doubt that the habit of fault-finding 
often has a serious effect upon the bodily health. 
One's mental attitude towards those with whom he 
is in daily relations should be constructive and 
positive. One may easily reason himself into the 
conviction that his fault-finding is entirely just. It 
may be just, but is it worth while? Much of the 
fault-finding does no possible good, but it does have 
the serious effect of poisoning the mind of the one 
who finds fault and directly injures the health. 

If you have such a habit, end it Now. 



35] 



AFFIRMATION 

Creative life is flowing into me and through me. 
Creative life will renew all my jaded faculties. 
Creative life will renew the energy of my depleted nerves. 
Creative life will restore me to perfect Health. 



When I use the phrase "Creative Life" I do it 
advisedly under the conviction that "creative life" 
is parallel with "subconscious mind," and that the 
subconscious mind is indeed the builder of the body. 
The sick man, therefore, can never make a mistake 
when he appeals to the creative mind within, for 
every such appeal has its answer within the great 
cosmic creative mind, which we call God. It is a 
prayer to God with a new meaning based on a 
realization that there is something in man funda- 
mentally corresponding to the nature of God. 

Make this affirmation a hundred times daily and 
you will surely feel the answering blessing. 



[ 36] 



AFFIRMATION 

/ will be \ind to every man, woman and child with 

whom I come in contact. 
I will be cheerful and hopeful. 
I will trust in God and bravely face the future. 



Just as the evil emotions affect the body harm- 
fully, so the good emotions affect the body helpfully. 
While it may not be a fundamental motive to be 
kind for the sake of being well, there is no question 
that the man who practices kindness will more 
completely harmonize all the faculties of his nature, 
and keep in better bodily health. The value of 
cheerfulness as a therapeutic agent is witnessed by 
the fashion of our times in the service of cheerful 
literature, while some of the most eminent 
medical writers of the world have declared their 
belief in faith in God as a healing agency. 



[ 37 



AFFIRMATION 



I am a temple of the living God. 

"And the spirit of the Almighty dicelkth in me" 



These words: "I am a temple of the living God," 
in a little different form, we began reading when we 
were children in the Sunday School, and ever since 
then at intervals, the minister has been repeating 
them in his sermon. And yet it is pretty safe to 
say that most of us have had no genuine realization 
that the words are true. But as a motive in life, 
they are really fundamental. I am a temple of the 
living God. The spirit of the Almighty decs dwell 
in me. Such affirmation can not be held without 
filling life with positive good. 



55; 



AFFIRMATION 

/ trust in God. 

So trusting I believe in myself. 



It would be an infinite gain if every man could go 
forth to his daily task absolutely believing in him- 
self and especially if his belief could rest upon the 
sure foundation of faith in God. We all of us need 
such re-enfcrcement. 

Many workers stand abashed before their em- 
ployer, not because they really need to, but because 
they somehow jump to the conclusion of his supe- 
riority. If there are a few men who go about with 
offensive conceit, there are many men who plant 
the seeds of failure for themselves by assuming an 
air of unwarranted humility. If you belong to this 
class, begin to-day to say, 

/ believe in myself, I believe in myself, I believe in 
myself. 

I can do good work. I will do good work. 
Go forth, child of God, and win! 



[ 39 



AFFIRMATION 

/ feel I am a spirit of life vitalizing the sympathetic 

nerve. 
I concentrate my attention on the life that is now 

flowing through the entire nervous system. 
I will feel life stirring all sluggish currents to positive 

activity. 
I will concentrate on this inflowing force until I feel 

that every cell in my body is charged with its 

vitalizing energy. 



If I have concentrated my attention on the life 
that is now flowing through the entire nervous 
system, how can I help vitalizing the sympathetic 
nerve? This is precisely what affirmation and 
concentration do for one. They cultivate positive 
vital force, and bring a feeling of growing strength, 
whatever the ailment may be. Concentrate on 
these words and do not be discouraged, even though 
it takes a little time to observe results. God does 
not mock men. Keep on affirming. 



I 40 



AFFIRMATION 



God is my infinite supply; therefore, I am followed 

and filled with everlasting abundance. 
My dependence is upon God and God never fails. 



I must remember that I have all I need to work 
with. Strength is mine and wisdom and intelli- 
gence. I shall work effectively because omnipo- 
tent power is mine. I shall work without hurry or 
worry because I have peace and the consciousness 
that all is well. So many people lack the real touch 
of power in their work because they feel that they 
are on the point of exhausting their strength or 
wisdom or power or health. Such fear does but 
paralyze one's skill because it is a form of atheism. 
He who would have any quality of genius must walk 
with faith. 



41 



AFFIRMATION 

Happiness today is mine! 
I shall be happy all day long. 

Even as God's smile is reflected in His sunshine, so my 
happiness shall be reflected in my own smile. 



Blessings on the man who smiles! Not the man 
who smiles for effect, nor the one who smiles when 
the world smiles, but the man whose smile is born 
of an inner radiance, the man who smiles when the 
clouds lower, when fortune frowns, w r hen the tides 
are adverse, the sunshine of whose heart breaks 
forth in smiles. Such a man not only creates his 
own fair world, but he multiplies himself an hundred 
fold in the courage and strength and joy of other 
men. 



[ 42] 



AFFIRMATION 

/ regard my world as an opportunity for service. 

I will no longer clamor for rights, but I will be glad of 

opportunities and privileges. 
And I will be happy. 



Some people think so much of their rights and so 
little of their opportunities that the natural order is 
entirely reversed. The man who lives to serve will 
be the happy man. The man who is always clamor- 
ing for his personal rights will be nervous, fretful 
and unhappy. 

When you go forth today, go looking for oppor- 
tunities to serve, and not for the vindication of your 
rights. 

The man who comes to serve is always welcome. 



[43 



AFFIRMATION 

/ am rich in thought and feeling. 

I am rich in hope and aspiration. 

I am rich in resources and opportunities. 

I am rich in faith and love. 

The world itself is mine and God is mine. 



Do not harbor the thought of poverty. Whoever 
things poverty will be poor. Whoever thinks wealth 
will be rich. 

If you are working with God as a child of God, 
then your supply cannot be exhausted. Do not 
entertain the notion for a moment that you cannot 
be anything or do anything that you may wish to do. 

Great things are born out of great thoughts. 

You are a child of God. 

Do not treat yourself like a pauper. Think success. 



[ 44 ] 



AFFIRMATION 

/ will trust in God. 

God is my refuge and strength. 

God is my deliverance. He will never fail me. 



Many other things may be desirable as a con- 
venience, but not as a permanent reliance. If you 
are looking for unquestioned help, you may accept 
the proffered help of friends or income or position, 
but you will not look with certain reliance upon any 
of these. God alone satisfies. You have only to 
take a step or two backward to see that God alone 
furnishes all you have, even your daily bread. 
However rich you may be in things, you are poor 
indeed without God. God is your inexhaustible 
supply. Faith in God is our anchor, and we learn 
from a thousand voices that we can never drift 
"beyond His love and care." 



45 



AFFIRMATION 

The divine life is now flowing through my entire 

nervous system. 
I fix my mind upon this in-flowing life-force until I 

feel that every cell in my body is charged with its 

vitalizing energy. 



If you are to be healed or do a successful work 
anywhere, you must dismiss from your mind all 
thought of being alone. If you think of yourself 
as alone, you separate yourself from God and from 
the great creative energy of the universe. 

Remember there can be nothing between you and 
God. God is the life of your life. 

Have faith in the inflowing love and life of God. 



[46] 



AFFIRMATION 

My help cometh from the Lord, which made Heaven 

and earth. 
I am a son of God. I am heir to all that is. 
God is with me, and I shall not want. 



We lose our strength because we forget its source. 
We get to thinking that the source of our strength is 
some temporary thing. A hundred times a week 
one needs to say with the Psalmist, 'The Lord is my 
strength." The very saying of it will help to link 
up the soul with its God, and a reinforcement of 
strength will come. We are weak only when we 
think weakness; when we substitute thought- 
strength, then we are strong. In the same way, we 
are poor because we think we are poor. I need to 
remember that I am heir to all that is. We live in a 
Godless world only when we lose our faith in the 
over-brooding, in-brooding God. Naturally when 
we have dropped God, the source of all supply, we feel 
poor, not because we need to, but simply because we 
have lost touch with God. 



[47 



AFFIRMATION 

God is with me every hour in light and in darkness. 
His infinite love abounds as tender as that of a mother. 
Like a child in pain I cry out to my Father. He 

answers, "Here, my child, I love you evermore." 
So comes healing peace. 



My little four-year-old boy lay sick and restless, 
fever-flushed at night, while I lay beside him in the 
dark. Every now and then the child, half sleeping, 
half waking, would call out, "Fadder." "Yes, dear," 
the answer came. "Hello, Fadder, please say 
hello to me, Fadder, every little while." Then he 
would drop again to sleep. I have often thought 
that the little fellow was but expressing a common 
human instinct. The shadows made him lonely, 
and he was more comfortable if he could hear an 
assuring voice as he journeyed to dreamland. 
Children of an older growth meet the shadows, too, 
and if they only had faith enough and knew how to 
articulate the cry, would they not often say to God, 
"Please say hello every little while," confident that 
He would answer, "Yes, dear, I am here," and in 
Him we would find peace and rest. 

[ 48 ] 



AFFIRMATION 

Health 
As I have said elsewhere in this volume, it is not 
the form of words which furnishes the healing 
power. It is sometimes the mental picture. Rest- 
ing after an illness of several months on my sleeping 
porch in New Hampshire, from where I could see 
the great pines lift their dark green branches to the 
western sky, one day, half sleeping, half waking, I 
saw distinctly on the roof of an old barn which 
helped to make up one of the loveliest pictures I 
have ever seen, the word, "Health." It appeared 
to be in rather large, distinct letters. Shall I call 
it a message direct from God to my tired nerves? 
At all events, let me say that the picture of the 
word "Health" has recurred again and again, and 
always it has brought healing blessing. Sometimes 
I have seen it on the roof of the old barn and many 
times in the sunset clouds above the pines. Often 
in large, distinct letters, and then again from the 
deep tones of purple down to the faintest shades of 
azure. But always when the vision has come it has 
been like an inspiration. I like to believe that this 
is one of the ways in which God has spoken to my 
soul with healing power. 

f 49 1 



AFFIRMATION 

Today I will open the windows of my soul 
That Love may enter 
That Joy may enter 
That Good-will may enter 
That Thoughtfulness may enter 
That Sympathy may enter. 



If I open the door wide, these guests will enter my 
very soul. 

This is God's world and love is abroad in it waiting 
for a welcome. Joy and sympathy are also seeking 
a refuge. Good-will and thoughtfulness will follow. 
Has life seemed a dull gray? Has there been no 
gleam of rose? These dear guests, if I admit 
them, will make a magic re-action in my soul. I 
shall feel love, I shall feel joy, I shall feel good- will 
and thoughtfulness and sympathy, and the feeling 
will be far-reaching. Other's lives will be blessed 
who need the cheer and comfort that my guests will 
carry to them, more perhaps than I realize. The 
sunshine that comes in at my open door will be like 
healing balm to my soul, and to all others with 
whom today I come in contact. 

[ 50] 



AFFIRMATION 

God speaks to men. 

Sometimes He speaks to men through me. 

God is the author of my vocal organs. 

He will heal them and make them strong and efficient. 



As St. Paul teaches us, the body is not one member, 
but many, and yet, as he says, "all fitly joined 
together in one." This sounds like mere common- 
place, but when we invoke healing power for the 
body, it is far more than commonplace, for, just as 
the regular physician may seek to reach the head or 
the throat through medicine taken into the stomach, 
so in metaphysical healing, one seeks to reach the 
remotest parts of the body through thoughts taken 
into the brain, on nerve currents, until they reach 
the distant cell families. There is no reason, there- 
fore, why congestion in the throat or lungs may not 
be put to flight by these positive affirmations of 
truth, for it is concentration upon affirmations of 
truth that help to build the body. But remember 
it is not how much you read that affects your 
consciousness, and not even how much you may 
know about mental states, but it is how much you 
really absorb of faith which finds expression in the 
vitalizing energy of your being. 

[51 ] 



AFFIRMATION 

God is my Lord and my God. 



There is too much praying in the second person 
plural and too little praying in the first person 
singular. I call the former prayer with words alone, 
— the latter is prayer with the spiritual conscious- 
ness. Public prayer, when we say "our Father" 
instead of my Father is peculiarly open to this objec- 
tion. The "affirmation" for which preparation has 
been made in the "silence" is less likely to be subject 
to such criticism. But no matter whether the 
prayer be public or private, the thing I urge is that 
element born of personal, spiritual consciousness of 
God's indwelling presence. 

Once, many years ago, I saw a young woman in a 
Salvation Army meeting kneel as in the very presence 
of God, without obvious choice of words, and in 
profound simplicity and sincerity pour out her soul 
as to her own God. Thus alone does "demonstra- 
tion" come. We must speak to our own God. For 
several years Thomas Didymus said, "My Lord and 
my God" At last there came a time when he said, 
"My Lord and my God." Healing power is born 
of the spirit of Thomas when he could say "My Lord 
and my God." 

[ 52 ] 



AFFIRMATION 

With all the intensity of an earnest mind, I desire life. 
God is life. Every cell in my body desires more life. 
Ever nerve cries aloud for more life. 
God will give me life more abundant. 

* * * 

There is no more favorite theme in the gospel of 
Jesus Christ than that of Life. Jesus everywhere 
speaks lightly, or not at all, of what men call death. 
But he exalts and magnifies life as if it were some- 
thing very precious. 

It is therefore reasonable to believe that there is 
in the universe a very abundant supply of life. It 
has never been exhausted or even nearly exhausted. 
The individual may feel poor for the lack of life, 
but there is no lack in the universe, for God Himself 
is life. Nor do the atoms of which the body is 
composed ever forget their natural hunger for more 
life. Every cell in my body desires more life. 
Every nerve does indeed cry aloud for more life. 
Whatever lack there may be is but a lack of control. 
When one has learned through the law of mind he 
may control life and the renewal of life by his own 
thought, he may send the blood whithersoever he 
will to any part of the body, to any weak or diseased 
organ by the simple power of thought. 

[53] 



AFFIRMATION 

/ am vitality! 



One of the greatest metaphysical healers in the 
country says of this affirmation: 

'Think vitality, breathe vitality, eat vitality, and 
know that you are the unlimited vitality of God; 
thus you will become a magnet for almighty vitality. 
Think toward each organ of your body: You are 
Vitality. You are so filled and thrilled with vitality 
that there is no place for disease or decay in you. 
All is vitality. Keep this up unceasingly, and it 
will make you so positively vital that health and 
happiness will reign throughout your whole being." 

This affirmation may be elaborated thus: 

I am vitality. 

I think vitality. 

I breathe vitality. 

I sleep vitality. 

I eat vitality. 

I drink vitality. 

I know that I am the unlimited vitality of God. 

[54] 



AFFIRMATION 

Health, Strength, and Vitality, — God with me. 
Health, Strength, and Vitality, — God with me. 
Health, Strength, and Vitality, — God with me. 

* * * 

One disappointing fact in the familiar Christian 
theology, whether it be conservative or liberal, is 
that there seems to be no place for a clearly defined 
doctrine of the "immanence of God." Men say they 
believe in God and then act as if they believed in the 
devil. Men say they believe in the immanence of 
God, and then act as if they believed He were a 
million miles away. The great doctrines of the 
Fatherhood of God and the Brotherhood of Man 
need to be supplemented with a vital faith in the 
immanence of God; in other words, men need to 
believe in a God who is here, — a God who is here 
now. Men need a God for every place, for every 
event, for every accident, for every emergency. I 
need a God with me. 

Put your very soul into this affirmation. Repeat 
it and repeat it until it is fairly burned into your 
consciousness. 

HEALTH, STRENGTH, -and VITALITY - 

GOD WITH ME. 

[ 55 1 



AFFIRMATION 

Today I will not worry. 
I will not be afraid. 
I will not give vcay to anger. 
I will not yield to envy, jealousy or hatred. 
Love and love alone shall rule my life. 

* * * 

With the old materialistic idea of life, men ask 
what have worry and fear and anger, envy and 
jealousy to do with health? But under the light of 
the new psychology men see clearly that nothing is 
more vital to good health than to get rid of these 
malignant emotions. 

This conclusion is based upon the fact that just 
as physical conditions influence mental states, so 
mental states influence physical conditions. It has 
been stated on very high authority that the whole 
bowel tract and perhaps all of the vital organs, with 
the secretions of the body, are largely under the 
influence of the emotions. Silently but surely the 
victim of worry, the victim of fear, the man who 
gives way to anger is storing up trouble in the 
stomach, the heart, the liver, and the bowels. 

These emotions are more dangerous than small 

pox or yellow fever. 

[ 56] 



AFFIRMATION 

/ am life. 
I am health. 
I am strength. 
I am wealth. 
I am freedom. 
I am joy. 



All this I am because the abounding life and love 
of God flows in my veins and vitalizes my nerves. 

Here is a great dynamic positive affirmation which 
will bring health and strength. When you make 
this affirmation, do it with power and with faith. 

Let faith, your positive faith, fill the several words 
with new meaning, — I am life, I am health, I am 
strength, etc. 

Make this a real affirmation of your own positive 
thought by filling it with faith. Make these 
affirmations as frequently as you can do so, feeling 
that they are vital. 



[ 57] 



AFFIRMATION 

/ am never alone. 

God is here. 

He will help me and heal me. 

* * * 

I used to reach home about the time our little girl 
of four was going to bed. Often I would spend a 
half hour at her bedside telling her stories. At the 
conclusion of the story-telling I would hear her 
prayer and leave her for the night. On one of these 
occasions she asked many questions about God. 
As she was a timid child, I tried particularly to em- 
phasize the thought of God's presence with her. 
As I was ready to leave, she asked, "Will you please 
light the gas before you go?" "Oh, no," said I, 
"you don't need the gas, for God is with you all the 
time." "Even in the dark?" she asked. "Yes," I 
said, "all the time, even in the dark." Then she 
drew a long sigh and replied, "Well, I'd rather have 
gas than God." Dear child, how like the rest of 
the world she was. The light v/as near and she 
could understand it, while in spite of all my efforts 
God was far away. Many a man would rather 
have gold than God. But the reason for that is 
that he does not understand how trivial and tem- 
porary gold is, nor how fundamental and imperative 
God is. Yet there will surely come a time in each 
life when gold will not buy the fundamental neces- 
sity, nor gas light the way. Then this little child 
grown older will gladly hear the voice of God. 

[58] 



AFFIRMATION 

/ trust in God. 

So trusting, I believe in myself. 

There is no room in my mind for the slavery of fear. 

Wording with God, nothing can defeat me. 



In order to see how widespread is the slavery of 
fear, one has only to make a brief but obvious cata- 
logue of things men do fear. Men are afraid of 
sickness, afraid of death, afraid of accident, afraid 
of poverty. They are anxious lest they may lose 
their work, afraid of public opinion, afraid of criti- 
cism, afraid other men will not appreciate them. 
Thus does fear hamper them and weigh upon their 
minds, like the dead body of a giant. What slavery 
could be worse. As Prentice Mulford says: "Fear 
cripples the spirit, and diseases the body. Fear is 
everywhere. Fear of want, fear of the poorhouse, 
fear of starvation. Fear has become with millions 
a fixed habit." 

Unless fear can be uprooted from the mind it 
will do untold damage. It is an evil emotion. 
Every emotion, good and bad alike, leaves its im- 
press upon the body. It changes the secretions of 
the body and may even destroy life. Whoever 
would keep well must exorcise fear as he would 
exorcise any other devil from his mind or any other 
poison from his body. 

[ 59] 



AFFIRMATION 
Treatment for Insomnia 

/ will be calm. God is with me. All is well. Tonight 

I shall sleep. I shall rest. I shall forget all the 

responsibilities of the day. I shall not freU nor 
worry, nor be anxious. 



Would you find a cure for worry? Believe in God 
Almighty. Believe that this world belongs to God, 
that you belong to Him; that, come what will, He 
will take care of you. A friend of mine assures me 
that she derives great comfort from this simple 
little speech, which she makes to herself, "God is 
here; I will trust Him." And it is a good speech for 
any one to make. My plans have failed, — "Never 
mind, God is here; I will trust Him." My fortune 
is lost, " Never mind, God is here; I will trust 
Him." Yes, God is here, He is mine and I am His. 
This is God's world. I am God's child. "Though 
He slay me, yet will I trust Him." "Fear hath tor- 
ment." Trust hath everlasting peace. 



[ 60] 



AFFIRMATION 
Treatment for Insomnia 

He that \eepeth me will not slumber. 

We are all lying in the arms of God. 

God's healing love wraps us about as with a garment. 

God's healing life flows through us while we sleep. 



We may lose our consciousness of God, but God 
does not lose His consciousness of us. We cannot go 
out of His sight. God's healing love does indeed 
wrap us about as with a garment. God's healing 
life does indeed flow through us while we sleep and 
it is good for us with the last breath at night to feel 
God's inflowing love. As a simple scientific fact, it 
is probably true that healing goes forward more 
surely while men sleep than when they are distracted 
by waking sights and sounds. 

Nothing could be better for the sick man than 
to say with all earnestness as he goes to sleep: "The 
divine spirit is flowing into me and through me. 
Let Thy blessing heal me, and let me not be afraid, 
for Underneath are the everlasting arms.' ' 

I 61 ] 



AFFIRMATION 
Treatment for Insomnia 

/ shall sleep sweetly tonight knowing that God's hind 
and strong protection is over me, under me, 
around me. 

ho harm can come to His helot ed. 



"He giveth His beloved sleep/' 

The responsibilities and cares of the day are 
forgotten. 

It is cool and quiet in my room. 

There is blessing in the night air as it blows 
upon my cheek. 

Our Father in Heaven, as we lie down tonight, 
tired but not discouraged, we thank Thee for the 
strange mysterious renewal that comes from sleep. 
In some magic way, the hew cr which we co not 
know, Thou pourest out Thy spirit upon us while we 
are unconscious. It enters into our hearts and 
minds, into our veins and bleed, and. behold, we 
awake refreshed and strong for a new day. 

Be Thou with us while we sleep tonight. Amen. 

[62] 



AFFIRMATION 

(May be used in case of insomnia) 

/ turn away from all the harry and worry of the day. 
My body is now entirely relaxed. 
I will sleep. 

I am now becoming quiet. 

I shall soon be fast asleep, and shall sleep quietly until 
morning. 



Whoever would quickly find the consolations of 
sleep should learn to form the habit of dismissing 
the cares of the day, and especially is this true for 
mental workers. Many people stretch out the work 
of the day indefinitely into the night in perfectly fruit- 
less fashion by turning over and over all the facts of 
the day's experience in the mind, until the brain 
becomes congested and incapable of sleep. When 
one has finished the work of the day and retired, 
he will do well to find an easy position and then 
entirely relax. This may be done by talking directly 
to the parts of the body, thus: arms, relax; body, 
relax; neck and head, relax; spinal column, relax; 
and so on, until finally the whole body, every organ 
down to the toes and fingers, is thoroughly relaxed. 
Then say: I am now becoming quiet, I will sleep, 
sleep, sleep, I shall sleep quietly until morning. 

[63] 



AFFIRMATION 

(Four comprehensive affirmations expounded by 
Elizabeth Cady) 

First, God is Life, Love, Intelligence, Substance, 
Omnipotence, Omnipresence, Omniscience. 

Second, / am the child or manifestation of God; 
and His life, love, wisdom, power, flow into and through 
me every moment. I am one with God, and am 
governed by His law. 

Third, / am Spirit, perfect, holy, harmonious. 
Nothing can hurt me or make me sick or afraid, for 
Spirit is God, and God cannot be sick Qr hurt or afraid. 
I manifest my real Self now. 

Fourth, God works in me to will and to do whatso- 
ever He wishes done by me; hence, I cannot fail. 



Her exposition is in part as follows: 

"In reality, God is forever in process of movement 
toward us, that He may manifest more fully Himself 
(all good) through us. Our affirming, backed by 
faith, is the grip which connects the car of our con- 
scious human need with the ever moving cable of 
His power and supply. They who have claimed their 
birthright by thus calmly affirming their oneness 
with God know how still they can be from external 
planning and effort after they have called into 
operation this marvelous power of affirmation." 

[ 64 1 



YOU AND AUNTIE DOLEFUL 

A health conversation in which you play the part 
of Sam Hopeful. 

Enter Auntie Doleful. Finds Sam Hopeful 
seated. 

Auntie — Good morning, Sam, how are you? 

Sam — Perfectly fine, auntie, if I were any better 
than I am I should immediately find a job in a stone 
quarry. 

Auntie— That's rather brave talk, Sam, somebody 
told me you were paralyzed. 

Sam— shucks, auntie, may be they were 
talking through their hat.. Anyhow, paralysis is 
only one of those big names that the doctors use. 
The fact is that the right side of me was rather tired 
out and I am letting it take the rest cure. 

Auntie — Well, Sam, I guess you will have plenty 
of time to let it rest. I have heard that paralysis 
lasts several years. 

Sam— Good, I guess that old side of mine can 
stand it; besides, I thought I never should have a 
chance to do any more reading, but now I've got all 
the time I need— a good chance to catch up. 

Auntie— A chance to catch up, Sam! I guess 
you're just bluffing! But while you're catching up, 

[ 65 ] 



how are you going to stand the everlasting racket of 
these children of your daughter's? 

Sam — Why, good gracious, auntie, these children 
never make any racket. There are only four of 
them and if they should make a noise, I'd just turn 
my deaf ear toward them and go on with my read- 
ing. We get on finely together, and they never 
trouble me. 

Auntie— They never trouble you, Sam? Don't 
they talk you almost to death? 

Sam — Good gracious, no. I suppose they do talk 
sometimes, but I just don't hear them. 

Auntie — But what do you do when they yell? 

Sam— Why, I just think harder, and by and by 
they stop. 

Auntie — Well, for my part, I don't see how you 
can hear yourself think at all, when all four of them 
get to yelling at once. 

Sam— Why, auntie, they hardly ever do all yell 
at once, and if they do, I just call them my quartette. 

Auntie— By the way, Sam, how do you like this 
kind of weather? 

Sam — Just fine. 

Auntie — Why, Sam, I don't believe you know a 
thing about the weather. Look out of the window 

I 66] 



there and see it rain. The sun hasn't been out all 
the morning. 

Sam — That's all right. This is just my kind of 
weather. I don't want to go out doors anyhow. 

Auntie — Why, Sam Hopeful! what are you talking 
about. This is now the seventeenth day of the 
month and we haven't had one really good day this 
month. 

Sam — Why, Auntie, I've looked out of the window 
nearly every day this month, and I should turn it 
right around the other way, I haven't seen one bad 
day. They have all been good days. 

Auntie — How is Charlie's business? Somebody 
told me that he was having rather hard sledding. 

Sam — Well, I don't know about that. He was in 
yesterday with a good broad smile, and I didn't 
hear him say anything about any sort of adversity 
or any dullness in his business. 

Auntie — Yes, I suppose Charlie is a good deal 
like you. He hasn't sense enough to know when it 
rains, or to know when he is bad off. He is too 
much like you to even know when he is sick. I 
suppose he wouldn't know it if he were paralyzed on 
both sides. But for my part, I don't propose to be 
indifferent when things go bad with me. 

[67] 



Sam — I don't call it being indifferent to smile or 
take a hopeful view of business or the weather or 
one's health. The fact is there are too many weather 
croakers and too many health croakers. If things 
are not quite normal, the best way is to take a 
cheerful view of things and address oneself to the 
business of abolishing friction. Don't you think so, 
auntie? 

Auntie — Oh, that is what some folks say, but for 
my part, I propose to call a spade a spade. I don't 
fall for all this new-fangled health talk. 

Sam — Well, auntie, don't you think it is better to 
talk health up than to talk it down? Isn't it better 
to talk hope than despair? Isn't it better to look 
on the sunny side of life than the shady side? Isn't 
it better to talk victory than to talk defeat? 

Auntie — Well, I agree, Sam, that it makes one 
feel better. 

Sam — Yes, auntie, it makes one feel better and it 
is better. The big doctors among the medical men 
tell us that every time we have a thought or an 
emotion it has some effect on the body. Now if 
that is so, don't you think it is a mistake to paint 
every case of sickness in colors of despair? Most of 
the doctors are not specialists. And even if they 

[ 68 ] 



were, they don't know everything. God made men 
for good long life, and I take my stand on this fact. 
God is a better doctor than most of the doctors. 
Paralysis or no paralysis, I want to live, and I'm 
going to keep right on living, till my Heavenly 
Father speaks the final word. When He says it is 
hopeless, I will believe it, and not a minute before. 

Auntie — Well, Sam, you and I are old friends, and 
you know as well as I do that I am not anxious to 
have you die. 

Sam — No, auntie, I know you are not, but you 
have just got in the habit of looking on the dark side, 
and you and other people unconsciously do a good 
deal to hurry folks into an early grave by exaggerating 
their ailments, and painting all your pictures in 
somber colors. For my part, I wonder that any 
public man is able to live at all if he ever meets with 
any bodily illness. People burden such a man with 
a million tons of unhealthy gossip. 

Auntie — -Well, Sam, I must be going, it don't 
look as if it was going to stop raining today. 

Sam — There, auntie, look out doors, and you will 
see that it has already stopped. 

Auntie — So it has, well then I will go right away. 
But I must say you are a funny fellow. 

[ 69] 



Sam — All right, I suppose I must be branded as 
"funny," just because I happen to believe that health 
is contagious instead of disease. I am even willing 
to be called "queer," if it will make the world a little 
stronger and a little more cheerful. Good-bye, 
auntie. Let us talk health up instead of down. 
"And God be with you till we meet again." 



70] 



HINTS ON HEALTH 

I hope to be able to make it clear, before I have 
finished this little volume, that I am not riding any 
hobby, nor am I the slave of any momentary experi- 
ment. "Health by Bran" may be wise in individual 
cases, but it is not a universal panacea. "Health 
by Dope" is equally unreliable. I recognise both 
mind and body. Agencies for keeping the body in 
good condition are both physical and mental. 
What I shall say here under the heading, "Hints on 
Health," I say neither as a physician nor as a meta- 
physician. These "Hints" are based upon a little 
common sense and a good deal of observation and 
some experience. I shall try to keep on safe ground 
by speaking only of those things v/hich everybody 
ought to know and everybody may know. I shall 
feel perfectly safe in saying to the healer and to 
every man who would be healed of disease that good 
nutrition is fundamental. Nutrition is as important 
to the man as good soil is to the maple tree or to the 
crop of potatoes or wheat or corn. Nutrition is the 
stuff that the body lives and grows on. The man's 
body is made up of some billions of cells; these cells 
will become weak and anemic and finally perish 
unless the body is supplied with proper nutrition, 

[ 71 ] 



My next keyword is Assimilation. If nutrition is 
needed for the nourishment of the body, assimilation 
is needed to make nutrition effective. It is not 
enough that food shall pass through the body; it 
does not achieve its end unless it passes into the 
blood. 

On the road to assimilation and nutrition another 
important keyword is Mastication. He has a rocky 
road before him who forms the habit of throwing 
his food into his stomach in chunks. The habit 
should be early formed of liberal chewing, or, as our 
new dictionaries give us permission to say, "Fletcher- 
izing." 

Yet one more keyword is Irrigation. To make food 
ready for assimilation it should have a fairly liberal 
quantity of fluid mixed with it, and it will be a pretty 
good practice to let this fluid be taken in the form 
of water, though I have known some people who 
had a prejudice in favor of other kinds of drink. It 
does not militate against what I have said about 
irrigation that it is difficult to find a half-a-dozen 
doctors who entirely agree on how much fluid shall 
be taken in twenty-four hours. My own advice 
would be, if you are going to guess at it, to make 
the quantity about two quarts, and if you do not 

I 72 ] 



want to guess, take a leaf from the book of nature 
and drink when you are thirsty, and the same leaf will 
also tell you to eat moderately when you are hungry. 

While I am speaking on this subject of food 
quantity, let me say that there is probably no worse 
habit among average men than the habit of gorging 
or eating all the time a little more than can be 
properly digested and assimilated. The habit of men 
is analagous to the foolish mistake of throwing into 
the manger of a horse five bushels of oats at one time. 
Not only does such feeding not nourish, on the 
contrary, it clogs up the system and makes all 
digestion and assimilation impossible. A good 
general rule as to quantity is to stop eating while 
you are still a little hungry. Many men literally 
eat themselves into an early grave. A friend of 
mine, borrowing a simile from his familiarity with 
the automobile, calls it "Fouling the cylinders." 

Let us now turn from the important subject of 
Assimilation to the no less important subject of 
Elimination. There are other means of elimination, 
but there are four that are perfectly obvious; one 
is Excretion of waste matter from the Bowels, and 
then the Kidneys, the Lungs, and the S\in. These, 
and a few others of less obvious importance, are the 

[ 73] 



means by which the great Creative Intelligence has 
planned to eliminate the poisons from the body. 
In the interest of health all these organs must be 
regularly performing their functions; otherwise, 
poisons are being stored somewhere, and, if stored, 
then always in dangerous quantities, for any quan- 
tity whatever is dangerous. Neither the skin, nor 
the lungs, nor the kidneys, nor the bowels can be 
safely neglected; if they are neglected, then auto- 
intoxication will surely ensue and disease must 
ultimately follow. This is one reason for my advice 
to look carefully to irrigation, or water drinking. 
It is hardly too much to say that, if these four 
sources of elimination could always be kept active, 
then the body of man would always be healthy. 

There is, therefore, little wonder that the in- 
telligent physician on being called for the first time 
in any case of sickness immediately addresses him- 
self to these various sources of elimination, for he 
knows that in all reason the cause generally lies 
there and if he can remove the cause he will often 
remove the disease. 

I said in starting these "Hints on Health" that I 
believe in both Mind and Body. What I have said 
thus far relates generally to the Body, but I want 

[ 74] 



to say that thought and the use of thought is perhaps 
equally important both as cause and cure of disease 
and in many forms of disease far more important. 
Whoever will make an intelligent study of the Sub- 
conscious Mind and the Sympathetic Nervous 
System cannot fail to see that Body and Mind are 
intimately linked together and that Mind has to do 
with the automatic functioning of the largest part 
of the bodily organs, and through the instrumen- 
tality of suggestion and autosuggestion such func- 
tioning is unconsciously influenced, and may be, 
when necessary, consciously directed. 

Here stands justified the plea of all metaphysical 
healers for mental atmosphere in treating disease; 
in other words, their plea that all sick people be sur- 
rounded by the most cheerful conditions in the 
interest of rapid recovery. Not only so, but this 
relation between Mind and Body also justifies their 
declaration, that it is vastly important in the interest 
of \eeping well, that the whole community be per- 
vaded with an atmosphere of cheerfulness and 
optimism. They properly insist that it isn't fair to 
anybody to think him from health into disease, and 
it is not fair to the sick man that he be thought 
into an early grave. 

[ 75] 



SOME HEALTH DON'TS 

Denials as well as affirmations have some thera- 
peutic value, though as it seems to me, affirmations 
are better than denials. But it must not be forgotten 
that an affirmation may take a negative form of 
statement. Here, then, are a few "will not's": 

I will not gossip. 

I will not seek employment as if I were making an 
apology. 

I will not do my work in a slip-shod fashion. 

I will not face the past. 

I will not waste my time reading about crimes and 
murder trials. 

I will not anticipate failure. 

I will not talk about sickness and death. 

I will not miss a chance to be kind. 

I will not hate anybody. •* 

I will not worry. 

I will not be sarcastic. 

I will not be angry. 

I will not be jealous. 

I will not think evil. 

I will not be afraid. 

How would it be to go over these Don'ts each 
morning before starting the day? Thus you will 
specifically commit yourself to these negative 
affirmations. 

Believe me, they will do much for your health. 



76 



PARTIAL BREATHING 

Unless it be the use of food and water, there is 
nothing more fundamental to good health than 
proper breathing. There is a critical moment at the 
birth of every child when life is problematical. There 
is another critical moment at the end of life when it 
is also problematical. It is all a question of oxygen. 
Can the baby and the old man secure oxygen enough 
and quickly enough to sustain life? 

It will therefore be seen how very important is 
the subject of proper breathing. 

Let it not be thought a thing inconsistent with 
the purpose of this book that I stop to emphasize a 
subject like this. I have already tried to make it 
clear that I believe in physical forces as well as 
metaphysical. I have also tried to make it clear 
that I hold in the highest esteem the work of the 
wise and conscientious doctors. Let me add at this 
point my conviction that there is no class of pro- 
fessional men in the community who do more ab- 
solutely unselfish work than the doctors. My chief 
difference with them, so far as I have any, is that 
many of them are slow to recognize the value of 
Mind Forces in the treatment of disease, whereas I 
believe that these forces are exceedingly important. 

I 77] 



Furthermore I feel sure that if we would frankly use 
these forces to their limit, often it would not he nec- 
essary to resort to the doubtful experiments of some- 
what experimental drugs. Let me return from this 
digression, then, to say that one of the most obvious 
precautions to take in the interest of good health is 
to insist upon correct breathing. Ordinarily cor- 
rect breathing will be described as "deep breathing." 
To substitute "deep breathing" for the ordinary 
breathing of the average man would be an immense 
gain, but it is not scientifically nor practically cor- 
rect. The ideal to be aimed at is really complete 
breathing or breathing in every part of the lungs, 
the upper, lower and middle region, and to achieve 
that result obviously requires some practice. Most 
men can survive for a time by rather spasmodic hit- 
or-miss breathing in one little corner of the lungs, 
but they cannot survive healthily. They will be 
open to all sorts of attacks upon the various organs 
of the body. 

Let me stop long enough to point cut some of the 
particular points of attack. Not to breathe cor- 
rectly is analogous to the pollution of a city's water 
supply. We may liken man's blood supply to the 
water supply of a city. Unless the blood can be 

[ 78 1 



properly oxygenated almost any organ in the body 
will be open to the attack of disease germs, but with 
strong currents of healthy blood flowing through 
the veins, men become relatively immune to every 
sort of attack. Besides this general danger in- 
volved in careless breathing, of course there is the 
ever present hazard to the lungs. It is perhaps not 
too much to say that the race would become immune 
to tuberculosis if all men could be persuaded to 
practice complete breathing for two generations. 

The fact that most men with consumption are 
narrow-chested is strongly suggestive of partial and 
inadequate breathing. 

Not only this, but we know from actual expe- 
rience that breathing has a powerful effect upon that 
common ailment which furnishes the medical pro- 
fession with the largest part of its business, — 
Common Colds. 

Though I am not a doctor, I hazard nothing when 
I say that if upon the appearance of the symptoms 
of a cold men would take more air and less food, — 
in other words, if they v/ere to stop for an hour and 
breathe deeply, or more correctly, breathe com- 
pletely, and then fast for a day, the cold would 
disappear. Just try it, but do not imagine that 

[ 79] 



this advice vitiates my point of emphasis, viz.: 
that Mind is immensely important in the treatment 
of diseases; in other words, that we may never 
properly neglect the reactions of the mind upon the 
body. 



[ 80 



BIGGER THAN ANYTHING THAT CAN 
HAPPEN TO HIM 

Mr. George Kennan, the famous historian of cur- 
rent happenings, was writing of the heroism of 
soldiers, thousands of them, who were returning 
from battle in every state of mutilation, carried on 
flat cars and suffering indescribable tortures, but 
never groaning and rarely frowning amid their 
suffering. When he had finished his description 
he added, significantly, "Isn't it fine to see a race of 
men who are bigger than anything that can happen 
to them." 

Since then I have thought much of this phrase 
and its meaning. For years since that time I have 
been on a tour of inspection and I find that men who 
are "bigger than anything that can happen to them" 
are not so very rare after all. 

One day I met a man and his wife. I had thought 
that they were very ordinary people — at all events 
no better or bigger than average folks, but two days 
before I met them I learned that they had buried 
the last of six children, (all they had) all of whom had 
died of diphtheria within one week. And there they 
were going about their home without a murmur, with- 
out a complaint, not even thinking of themselves 

[81 1 



as "martyrs to the Providence of God," blaming 
nobody, but quite ready to take up the next task 
and perform it bravely. Then I said, "Isn't it fine 
to meet men and women who are 'bigger than any- 
thing that can happen to them.' ' 

When I was quite a boy I also saw a man one day 
standing in the midst of the dust of a threshing 
machine in operation. Suddenly all the machinery 
stopped, and an exclamation of horror escaped the 
dozen or more men who were engaged in this harvest 
operation and it was seen that both arms had suddenly 
been drawn into the cylinder of the machine. He was 
still living when he was released from his perilous 
position. He wholly recovered his health, but both 
arms were absolutely destroyed at the shoulder. He 
did not die and he did not complain, but in a spirit 
of marvelous heroism he still went about tasks which 
otherwise would have seemed quite impossible, and 
I have been thinking again, "What a fine thing it is 
to meet a man who is bigger than anything that can 
happen to him." 

During the late World War I have also been observ- 
ing, and I have found that over widespread areas 
there occurs this superiority of men over whatever 
can happen to them, for everywhere throughout 

f 82 1 



Great Britain and France and Belgium men by the 
thousands, tens of thousands and hundreds of thou- 
sands have been mowed down like grass before a 
mowing machine, or wheat before the reaper, and as 
swath after swath have disappeared other thousands 
have swept in to fill the ranks in response to an 
idea, and generally without complaint, and the world 
has rejoiced in the fact that men have been "bigger 
than anything that could happen to them." 

But this spirit has been peculiar to no country 
and no race. Many years ago, while I was in Japan, 
there occurred a fire one night in Tokio when six 
thousand homes were burned and twenty thousand 
people were rendered homeless. The next day 
people were walking calmly about the devastated 
region saying "shikata-ga-nai" (there is no help for 
it) . Then I saw that even here, without the form of 
Christian philosophy, people could be "bigger than 
anything that could happen to them." 

But did we not see the same thing illustrated a 
little later in San Francisco, where great buildings 
almost touching the sky fell into heaps like a pack of 
broken cards, while acres upon acres in the burned 
district were scarcely more than heaps of ashes, and 
thousands of people were rendered homeless, and 

[ 83] 



thousands of others fleeing from the stricken city, 
— and yet, these people, who seemed at first to 
have their spirit crushed, pulled themselves together, 
rebuilt upon the ashes of the old city, faced the 
future with sublime faith and proved by their 
actions that they were "bigger than anything that 
could happen to them." 

What is going to happen to us, to me, to you, to 
your family, to your country? Not one of us knows. 
But happy are we if, when the happening comes, 
we are "bigger than anything that can happen to us." 

What can make us "bigger than anything that can 
happen to us"? No form of words, surely no formal 
philosophy, Christian or otherwise, but the reality 
of faith in the Eternal in us. That can make us 
"bigger than anything that can happen to us." 



84 



POISE AND POWER 

It is rather easy to see how poise is related to 
power, but not quite so easy to see how it is related 
also to health. The meaning of mental and spiritual 
poise can easily be illustrated from what we know of 
physical poise. To be well poised means to stand 
squarely on one's feet. To lack poise means to 
stand more or less out of balance. 

You see at once how this is related to power. The 
man standing more or less out of balance or out of 
poise is never prepared to carry a heavy load. Out 
of poise, he is easily crushed to earth; whereas, 
standing with both feet squarely upon the earth, 
leaning neither backward nor forward, neither to the 
right nor the left, even a small man is a marvel of 
physical strength. Another illustration of the 
relation between poise and power is often witnessed 
on the ball field. On account of being compelled to 
act rapidly and while still out of position a ball 
player is often unable to throw with accuracy or 
catch with certainty. The trouble is, he is out of 
poise. 

Much bad work, both physical and mental, results 
from lack of poise. The man who lacks poise is 
easily surprised and therefore easily defeated. No 

[85] 



man who has lost his poise can strike a heavy blow, 
nor strike it with precision. Whether you be a 
wood-chopper, a prize fighter, a school teacher, a 
merchant or a minister, the exigencies of your work 
call for accuracy and power, — and therefore, for 
poise. The difference between a putterer and a 
man of power is a question of poise. I think it 
perfectly safe to say that it is impossible to find a 
man of real power without poise. 

I never yet have seen a man who flutters around 
from idea to idea, from task to task, from one friend 
to another friend, who was a man of real power. 
The man of power gives the impression of solidity 
because he is solid. Nothing surprises him, nothing 
disturbs him, nothing throws him off his balance. 
He is a man of power because first he is a man of 
poise. 

Now it seems to me that all analogies must point 
to the fact that poise and health are also linked 
together. And as a matter of fact and observation, 
I believe it to be very difficult for a man to keep his 
health who loses his mental and moral poise. He is 
open to all the disturbing influences due to surprise, 
and a thousand things that ought not to even annoy 
or disturb such a man will throw him into a flutter 

[ 86] 



of excitement and a fever of distress. Such a man 
will be open to all the nervous disturbances that 
sap the energy and destroy strength. His nerves 
will be worn to a frazzle because it is impossible for 
him ever to "let go" and be calm, because he has 
lost his poise. No man can keep well who cannot 
"start" and "stop" with ease, and no woman can 
keep in health who goes into hysterics because the 
gown which she expected would be ready at a 
certain time is not, or because the day is rainy when 
she confidently expected sunshine. She cannot 
bear that her plans should be changed, and so she 
makes herself and all others uncomfortable because 
her dress-maker could not perform the impossible, 
or because the Almighty saw fit to water the earth 
on her particular day. The lack of poise is a seed 
which bears nothing but weeds of one sort or another. 
If you are convinced that your illness is due to lack 
of poise, take time enough for the practice of "letting 
go," to thoroughly get hold of yourself and control 
your moods and prepare yourself for the surprises of 
life. 



[ 87, 



A STATE OF MIND 

Somebody once said humorously in describing 
Boston, "Boston is not a place, it is a state of mind." 
Without any attempt at humor one may say that 
many things that happen to one in this world are 
simply states of mind. For example: when a child 
goes out in the afternoon, is run over and killed, only 
to come in safely a few minutes later, that is a state 
of mind and not a real fact. Many of our tired 
feelings are states of mind, some of our poverty, — 
and if poverty, then why not some of our riches, — 
are also states of mind. Let us frankly admit when 
we worry and when we fear, there is no genuine fact 
behind the phenomena, they are simply states of 
mind. The physician of a sick man was asked 
"what ails your patient?" "Oh," said he, "it is 
nothing but a state of mind." The patient over- 
hearing the remark said, "All right, then, I'll be 
cured by another state of mind," and he was. 



[88] 



THE SLAVE OF A CLOCK 

I used to know a lady who claimed that she had 
all her life been the slave of a clock, and whether 
she was ready or not, the clock had been bossing her 
around telling her to do this and to do that. It was 
saying to her in the morning, 'Time to get up!" 
At noon, 'Time for lunch!" If she were going to 
New York, the exhortation was, 'Time to start, 
trains don't wait." At night, at an hour which this 
good lady thought to be about seven o'clock, but 
which was actually tw r elve or half past, she would 
hear from some member of the family, "Twelve 
o'clock, time for bed!" This good woman, when 
she was preparing for an automobile trip, wanted to 
start when there was only time enough left to go 
half the distance by daylight. 

As a matter of fact, she wasn't greatly troubled 
by the clock, but other people were troubled and 
they were always reminding her of the message of 
the clock, telling her what the hour of the day or 
night might be, while really that was the last thing 
in the world that she wanted to know. So often 
was she reminded of the message of the clock that 
she came at last to fairly hate the word, and called 
herself "The slave of the clock." She no doubt 

[89] 



spoke very truly and was almost infinitely irritated 
by the reminders that were being made to her, but 
she wasn't the only irritated one. All those asso- 
ciated with her were also irritated, because, having 
resented the commands of her master, the clock, 
she irritated everybody else by being perpetually 
late and making other people who were associated 
with her anxious. 

If one really wants to keep well, this clock slavery 
is really a sad situation, but it is far more sad for 
those associated with the "slave." Since this little 
book has developed into general good advice, I wish 
to give a little advice to the woman who is the 
"slave of a clock. " Let her try the recommendation 
of St. Paul when he advised people to live above the 
law and not under the law. Only those are slaves 
who allow themselves to be forced to live under the 
law; they immediately find freedom when they begin 
to live above the law. In other words, people are 
the slaves of the clock only when they resent being 
compelled to keep their engagements or to start on 
time. The moment they cease to be selfish and bring 
themselves to the simple habit of being on time, they 
no longer resent the so-called slavery to the com- 
mands of a clock. When they reach the conclusion 

[ 90 1 



to break with the selfish habit of consulting their 
own convenience and try to establish the habit of 
consulting the convenience of other people and 
keeping their engagements, they get rid of a world 
of wear and tear, a world of annoyance and a world 
of friction, and help to restore the tattered nerves of 
people who are suffering from their association with 
the unmitigated nuisance of the bad habit of always 
being late. 

MORAL: Don't break the clock — give up your 
own bad habit. 



! 1 J 



FORGET IT 

OR 

THE NEVER MIND PHILOSOPHY 

One of the interesting things that I noticed during 
my four years in Japan was what many foreigners 
call the shikataga-nai philosophy. Shikataga-nai 
means "there is no help for it," or, to give it rather 
free rendering, "Let it pass," or, still freer render- 
ing, "Never mind." There is no doubt that this 
apparently easy-going philosophy helps reduce the 
friction of common life immensely, and with regard 
to a thousand trivial things; I am persuaded it is a 
very useful philosophy. We cannot considerably 
change the circumstances and the accidents of life, 
but we can soften and reduce the friction caused 
by these accidents not a little. Whoever reduces 
friction is a benefactor, and at least the "never 
mind" philosophy will help to do this. Some one 
has slighted you or neglected you, or you think they 
have — "Forget it." Somebody has misunderstood 
you or misrepresented you — "Never mind." It is 
not worth while to be bothered. Or you have 
another bad bill — Shikataga-nai. Just forget it. 

f 92 1 



Somebody has summed up the whole matter in 
these familiar lines: — 

"Let's start forgetting! 
There are so many things to lay away 
In graves — dead hates and fears, and doubts that 

flay, 
And all these little faults scarce worth a groan, — 
There are so many black days we have known! 
There is no use regretting! 

Let's try forgetting. 

Let's start forgetting! 
A thought of envy is no pleasant guest. 
And hatred nourished leaves no peace or rest; 
A tear's no thing to treasure; and no strife 
Becomes a corner stone to fuller life. 
Away with grief and fretting! 

Let's start forgetting." 



[ 93 



HEALING SCRIPTURES 



HEALING SCRIPTURES 

I 

Surely he shall deliver thee from the snare of 
the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence. 
Psalm 91: 3. 

There shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any 
plague come nigh thy dwelling. Psalm 91 : 10. 

Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth 
all thy diseases. Psalm 103: 3. 

He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up 
their wounds. Psalm 147: 3. 

I had fainted unless I had believed to see the 
goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. 
Psalm 27: 13. 

The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall 
I be afraid? Psalm 27: 1. 

Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord 
Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of 
all comfort, who comforteth us in all our tribulation, 
that we may be able to comfort them which are in 
any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves 
are comforted of God. II Corinthians 1 : 4. 

I will heal thee and add unto thy days. II Kings 
20: 5, 6. 

[97] 



I will take sickness away from the midst of thee. 
Ex. 23: 25. 

Lord, my God, I cried unto thee, and thou hast 
healed me. Psalm 30: 2. 

And Jesus went about all the cities and villages, 
teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the 
gospel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness 
and every disease among the people. Matt. 9: 35. 

But Jesus turned him about, and when he saw 
her, he said, Daughter, be of good comfort; thy 
faith hath made thee whole. And the woman was 
made whole from that hour. Matt. 9: 22. 

Then touched he their eyes, saying, According to 
your faith, be it unto you. Matt. 9: 29. 

As they went out, behold, they brought to him a 
dumb man possessed with a devil. And when the 
devil was cast out, the dumb spake. Matt. 9: 32, 33. 

And Jesus went about all the cities and villages, 
teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the 
gospel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness 
and every disease among the people. Matt. 9: 35. 

And when he had called unto him his twelve dis- 
ciples, he gave them power against unclean spirits, 
to cast them out, and to heal all manner of sickness 
and all manner of disease. Matt. 10: 1, 

[98] 



Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, 
cast out devils: freely ye have received, freely give. 
Matt. 10:8. 

The blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, 
the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead 
are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached 
to them. Matt. 11:5. 

And great multitudes followed him, and he healed 
them all. Matt. 12: 15. 

II 

Behold, the Lord's hand is not shortened, that it 
cannot save. Isaiah 59: 1. 

God is our refuge and strength, a very present 
help in trouble. Psalm 46: 1. 

Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind 
is stayed on thee; because he trusteth in thee. 
Isaiah 26: 3. 

I sought the Lord, and he heard me, and delivered 
me from all my fears. Psalm 34: 4. 

They shall dwell safely and none shall make them 
afraid. Ezek. 34: 28. 

He giveth power to the faint, and to them that 
have no might he increaseth strength. Isaiah 40: 29. 

Let the weak say, I am strong. Joel 3: 10. 
[99] 



And her countenance was no more sad. I Samuel 
1:18. 

For thou hast delivered my soul from death, mine 
eyes from tears, and my feet from falling. Psalm 
116:8. 

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. 
Psalm 23:1. 

Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in 
God, believe also in me. St. John 14: 1. 

The trying of your faith worketh patience. 

The spirit of the Lord is upon me; ... he 
hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted. Luke 
4: 18. 

And the power of the Lord was present to heal 
them. Luke 5: 17. 

And he took him, and healed him, and let him go. 
Luke 14:4. 

Jesus saith unto him, Rise, take up thy bed and 
walk. And immediately the man was made whole, 
and took up his bed, and walked. John 5: 8, 9. 

And he leaping up stood, and walked, and entered 
with them into the temple, walking and leaping, and 
praising God. Acts 3: 8. 

There came also a multitude out of the cities round 
about unto Jerusalem, bringing sick folks, and them 

[ 100] 



which were vexed with unclean spirits, and they 
were healed every one. Acts 5: 16. 

Ill 

I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills from whence 
cometh mine help. Psalm 121: 1. 

Who satisfieth thy mouth with good things; so 
that thy youth is renewed like the eagle's. Psalm 
103:5. 

Lift up thy voice with strength; lift it up, be not 
afraid. Isaiah 40: 9. 

Strengthen ye the weak hands. Isaiah 35: 3. 

Stretch forth thine hand, and he stretched it out; 
and his hand was restored whole as the other. 
Mark 3: 5. 

Then shall the lame man leap as an hart. Isaiah 
35: 6. 

But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew 
their strength. They shall mount up with wings 
as eagles: they shall run and not be weary; and they 
shall walk, and not faint. Isaiah 40: 31 . 

I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my 
fortress: my God; in him will I trust. . . . Thou 
shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for 
the arrow that flieth by day; nor for the pestilence 

[101 ] 



that walketh in darkness. For he shall give his 
angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways. 
Psalm 91: 5, 11. 

Say to them that are of a fearful heart, Be strong, 
fear not. Isaiah 35: 4. 

I had fainted unless I had believed to see the 
goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. 
Psalm 27: 13. 



It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth 
nothing. John 6: 63. 

Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and 
the life. John 14:6. 

And we know that all things work together for 
good to them that love God. Romans 8: 28. 

He hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of 
power, and of love, and of a sound mind. II 
Timothy 1:7. 

Behold I make all things new. Rev. 21:5. 

Thou art my God and the Rock of my salvation. 
Psalm 89 : 26. 

Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteous- 
ness and all these things shall be added unto you. 
Matthew 6: 33. 

[ 102] 



But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. 
James 1:6. 

Speak the word only, and my servant shall be 
healed. Matthew 8: 8. 

One God and father of all; who is above all, and 
through all, and in you all. Ephesians 4: 6. 

Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities. 
Romans 8: 26. 

Bless the Lord, Oh, my soul, and forget not all his 
benefits; who forgiveth all thine iniquities, who 
healeth all thy diseases. Psalm 103: 2, 3. 

Heal me, Lord, and I shall be healed. Jere- 
miah 17: 14. 

The Eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath 
are the Everlasting Arms. Deuteronomy 33: 27. 

The Spirit also helpeth our infirmities. Romans 8 : 6. 

Thou art my Father, my God, and the rock of 
my salvation. Psalm 89: 26. 

Lord, my God, I cried unto thee, and thou 
hast healed me. Psalm 30: 2. 

But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of 
righteousness arise with healing in his wings. 
Malachi 4: 2. 

1 shall yet praise Him, who is the health of my 
countenance and my God. Psalm 43: 5. 

[ 103] 



For I will restore health unto thee, and I will heal 
thee of thy wounds, saith the Lord. Jeremiah 30: 
17. 

And the Lord will take away from thee all sickness. 
Deuteronomy 7: 15. 

And the prayer of faith shall heal the sick, and 
the Lord shall raise him up. James 5: 15. 

I have loved thee with an everlasting love, there- 
fore, with loving kindness have I drawn thee. 
Jeremiah 31: 3. 

In the shadow of thy wings will I make my 
refuge. Psalm 57: 1. 

I will sing aloud of thy mercy in the morning; for 
thou hast been my defence and refuge in the day of 
my trouble. Psalm 59: 16. 

Lead me to the rock that is higher than I. For 
thou hast been a shelter for me. Psalm 61 : 2, 3. 

I will trust in the covert of thy wings. Psalm 
61:4. 

He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most 
High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. 
Psalm 91:1. 



104 



A GROUP OF HEALING POEMS 



COME TO ME, SLEEP 

"Sleep, Sleep, come to me, Sleep, 

Come to my blankets and come to my bed, 
Come to my legs and my arms and my head, 
Over me, under me, into me creep. 

"Sleep, Sleep, come to me, Sleep, 

Blow on my face like a soft breath of air, 
Lay your cool hand on my forehead and hair, 
Carry me down through the dream-waters deep. 

"Sleep, Sleep, come to me, Sleep, 

Tell me the secrets that you alone know, 
Show me the wonders none other can show, 
Open the box where your treasures you keep. 

"Sleep, Sleep, come to me, Sleep, 

Softly I call you; as soft and as slow 
Come to me, cuddle me, stay with me so, 
Stay till the dawn is beginning to peep." 

Henry Johnstone. 



[ 107 



THE HAPPINESS FLOWER 

"Did you ever find the Happiness Flower? 
It isn't so hard to find; 
It opens wide at the morning hour, 
In the meadows of cheerful mind. 

"But it sometimes grows in the sandy dust 
That fills the desert of care, 
And down in the fields of perfect trust 
You always can find it there. 

"It's sweet as honey, the Happiness Flower, 
Winter and summer the same — 
On the difficult hills by troublous tower, 
It shines like a rosy flame. 

"If ever you find the Happiness Flower, 
And it isn't so hard to find 
By the rainbow's end in an April shower, 
Where the tears and smiles are twined, 

"May it flourish fair in your garden ground, 
A' glisten with joy's bright dew; 
May the sunshine of love the whole year round 
Lie warm on your flower and you." 

A. N. K, 

I 108 ] 



THINKING ROSES 

"When I'm thinking roses 

In my heart 'tis June, 
Shadows flee the sunshine, 

All the world's in tune. 
Rose-thoughts bring the solstice 

Of each sunlit year, 
When I'm thinking roses 

Happiness is here. 

"When I'm living roses 

Golden glows the way 
Leading into service, 

Stronger day by day. 
Rose-thoughts know the secret 

Of my inner shrine, 
When I'm living roses 

Flower o* love is mine." 

Gertrude Rugg Field. 



[ 109 



JUST A SMILE 

"As I was trudging down a long, long street, 

And dreary, 
With a pack of care upon my back, and feet 

So weary, 
I met the sudden flash of friendly smile' 
It made that road shrink up to half a mile, 
It made that queer, old load fall off to limbo; 
As drudge will turn from task, her arms akimbo, 
Istared and straightened - it had come so quick, 
Ihe change had been so sunny and so slick! 
Then I tramped onward, whistling all the while - 
w hat sense of comradeship in just a smile! " 

Anne Cleveland Cheney. 



[HO] 



MY BODY AND I 

"Say not 'I have a soul/ I am a soul, 
And have a body builded for my need, 
That I, a soul, may in this great world-school 
Study the Master's works. My earthly house 
Has wondrous windows; mimic galleries lead 
Divinest sounds to me — deep lessons spelled 
By loving lips, and vast world melodies. 
I am a soul, set in a sphere compact 
Of transient elements. 
Of these a little handful serves for home, 
For medium touch 'twixt me and earth, 
The while I stay — gives fire and food and rest. 
Shall the base stuff strike into me a stain, 
Leave pungent, earthly odor? Soul of all, 
Attract me, lest the body should 
Transcend a dwelling's use." 

Mary F. Butts. 



[Ill ] 



FINE TO-DAY 

"Sure, this world is full of trouble — 

I ain't said it ain't. 
Lord! I've had enough an' double 

Reason for complaint. 
Rain an' storm have come to fret me, 

Skies were often gray; 
Thorns an' brambles have beset me 

On the road — but say, 

Ain't it fine to-day! 

"It's to-day that I am livin', 

Not a month ago, 
Havin', losin', takin', givin', 

As time wills it so. 
Yesterday a cloud of sorrow 

Fell across the way; 
It may rain again to-morrow, 

It may rain — but say, 

Ain't it fine to-day! " 

Douglas Malloch, 



2] 



HEALING SERVICE— (Responsive) 

FOR THE CURE OF FEAR 

Leader — Fear thou not; for I am with thee; be 
not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen 
thee: yea, I will help thee: yea, I will uphold 
thee with the right hand of my righteousness. — 
Isaiah 41: 10. 

Response — Be strong and of good cour- 
age, fear not; for the Lord thy God, he 
it is that doth go with thee.— Deut.31 : 6, 8. 

Leader — What time I am afraid, I will trust 
in thee. — Psalm 56: 3, 11. 

Response — The Lord is on my side; I 
will not fear what man can do unto me. 

— Psalm 118:6. 

Leader — Be of good courage, and he shall 
strengthen your heart, all ye that hope in the Lord. 

— Psalm 31: 24. 

Response — For God hath not given us 
the spirit of fear, but of power and of 
love, and of a sound mind.— II Timothy 1 : 7. 

Leader — Though an host should encamp against 
me, my heart shall not fear: though war should 
rise against me, in this will I be confident. — Psalm 
27:3. 

Response — For in time of trouble he 
shall hide me in his pavilion: in the 

[113] 



secret of his tabernacle shall he hide 
me; he shall set me up upon a rock. — 
Psalm 27: 5. 

Leader — When thou liest down, thou shalt not 
be afraid; yea, thou shalt lie down, and thy sleep 
shall be sweet. — Proverbs 3: 24. 

Response — Whosoever hearkeneth unto 
me shall dwell safely and shall be quiet 
from fear of evil.— Proverbs 1 : 33. 

Leader — Abide thou with me, fear not. — 
I Samuel 22: 23. 

Response — There is no fear in love; but 
perfect love casteth out fear: because 
fear hath torment. He that feareth is 
not made perfect in love. — I John 4: 18. 

Leader — Follow peace with all men, and holi- 
ness, without which no man shall see the Lord. 
— Hebrews 12: 14. 

Response — Peace I leave with you, my 
peace I give unto you : not as the world 
giveth, give I unto you. Let not your 
heart be troubled, neither let it be 
afraid.— John 14: 27. 



114 



HEALING SERVICE— (Responsive) 
FOR THE CURE OF EVIL EMOTIONS 

Leader — I will not Worry. 

Response — I will not worry, because 
worry involves the destruction of happi- 
ness. Worry never failed to make a 
man unhappy. It will cover the face 
with wrinkles, contract the brow with 
frowns. It will drive out the light of 
the soul and produce a reign of darkness. 
It will steal the joys of life. Further- 
more, it will destroy my working power. 
I will not worry because finally it will de- 
stroy my health. I — will — not — worry. 

Leader — I will not be afraid. 

Response — I will not be afraid because 
I am not alone. God is with me. I am 
not weak for I am reinforced by the 
infinite power. I am not ignorant be- 
cause the infinite intelligence is mine. 
"I have no fear! what is in store for me 
Shall find me self-reliant, undis- 
mayed. 

God grant my only cowardice may be: 
Afraid to be afraid !" 

Leader — I will not give way to anger. 

Response — I will not give way to anger 
for it is wholly a negative emotion. It 
contributes nothing to my working 

[115] 



power. It makes me less efficient. Not 
only so, but it tends to destroy the nor- 
mal functioning of my bodily organs, 
and to destroy my health. 

Leader — I will not yield to envy, jealousy or 
hatred. 

Response — I will not yield to envy, 
jealousy or hatred because these also are 
negative emotions and tend to destroy 
my own peace of mind and to injure 
others. 

Leader — I will be kind to every man, woman 
and child with whom I come in contact. 

Response — I will be kind because I was 
made for kindness. I will be kind out 
of sheer gratitude, for other men are 
kind to me. I will let love rule my life. 

Leader — I will be cheerful and hopeful. 

Response — I will be cheerful because 
cheerfulness will make my own work 
lighter. I will be hopeful because God 
is my Father, and it is good to look 
ahead. 

Leader — I will trust in God and bravely face 
the future. 

Response — I will trust in God because 
He has never failed me, and I shall still 
be with Him wherever I go. I shall 
bravely face the future because my road 
leads toward the city of God. 

[ 116] 



A HEALING SERVICE— (Responsive) 

Leader — I am the Way, the Truth, and the 
Life. 

Response — I am come that ye might 
have life and have it more abundantly. 

Leader — I and my Father are one. 

Response — He that hath seen me hath 
seen the Father. 

Leader — But let him ask in faith, nothing 
wavering, for he that wavereth is like a wave of 
the sea driven with the wind and tossed. — James 
1:6. 

Response — And the prayer of faith shall 
save the sick, and the Lord shall raise 
him up.— James 5: 15. 

Leader — And call upon me in the day of trouble; 
I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me. — 
Psalms 50: 15. 

Response — For I will restore health 
unto thee, and I will heal thee of thy 
wounds, saith the Lord.— Jeremiah 30: 17. 

Leader — Fear thou not; for I am with thee; be 
not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen 
thee: yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee 
with the right hand of my righteousness. — Isaiah 
41:10. 

I 117] 



Response — Trust in the Lord with all 
thine heart; and lean not unto thine 
own understanding.— Proverbs 3: 5. 

Leader — For the Lord thy Gocl will hold thy 
right hand, saying unto thee, Fear not, I will help 
thee. — Isaiah 41: 13. 

Response — Be still and know that I am 
God.— Psalm 46: 10. 

God is our refuge and strength, a very 
present help in trouble.— Psalm 46: 1 . 

Leader — Be strong and of good courage, fear 
not; for the Lord thy God, he it is that doth go 
with thee — Deut. 31:6, 8. 

Response — The eternal God is thy ref- 
uge, and underneath are the everlasting 
arms.— Deut. 33:27. 

Leader — Ask, and it shall be given you, seek, 
and ye shall find, knock, and it shall be opened 
unto you. — Matthew 7: 7. 

Response — But I know, that even now, 
whatsoever thou wilt ask of God, God 
will give it thee.— John 1 1 : 22. 

Leader — Wait on the Lord: be of good courage, 
and he shall strengthen thine heart; wait, I say, 
on the Lord.— Psalm 27: 14. 

Response — And all things, whatsoever 
ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall 
receive.— Matthew 21 : 22. 

[ 118] 



HEALING ASPIRATION 

V/ALTER DE VOE 

(For use in public service or private meditation) 

I pray to know the charm of mine own tran- 
scendent soul, that it may show forth greater power 
through my personality and enfold all mankind in 
the healing power that will soothe the aching hearts 
of the world. 

When the Master spoke, the charm of his soul 
was the Spirit of his words, and whoever was ready 
for truth, felt his spiritual power and followed him 
gladly. 

I pray that through the charm exerted by my 
own awakened soul, I may be able to arouse and 
awaken the slumbering soul which is the Self of 
every one. May I realize the power to help each 
Self to manifest its God-likeness in the flesh, and 
thus bring an immortal glory to this world. 



[ 119 



A HEALING PRAYER 

Thou Infinite yet ever-present Spirit, we are glad 
of all human relationships. We are thankful for all 
companionship with nature. We rejoice in the 
fellowship with books, yet like the child who grows 
tired with every plaything and every childish task 
and lonely for a mother's love, we look to Thee with 
an infinite longing. In our effort to solve the 
problems of life, we throw our web of life hither and 
thither, but it will not hold. Only when at last we 
have thrown the thread of faith to Thee, shall the 
ductile anchor hold. Our Heavenly Father, as we 
go forth into this day may we not leave Thee for 
any dream or phantom, but may we walk with Thee 
all day long and find in Thee the answer to every 
longing and the solution of every problem. Thou art 
the solution not merely of our far-off problems, Thou 
art with us noix. We nourish the consciousness of 
Thy intimate daily and hourly presence. Thou art 
not merely around us, Thou art in us, a living, vital 
force, a spring of everlasting life. We have only to 
appeal to Thy creative presence within us to find 
Thee healing all our diseases and binding up all our 
wounds. We depend upon Thee, Thou great spirit 
of life, and we trust Thee entirely. Thou wilt 
invigorate all the nerves of our bodies and give new 
life and power to each life cell. Let us not forget 
that we are temples of the living God; and so may 
we have Thy healing blessing. Amen. 

[ 120 ] 



A HEALING BLESSING FOR CLOSE 
OF SERVICE 

Leader — Thou Infinite Spirit, living Father! 
we recognize that our life is one with Thine un- 
limited life and power. As we have waited here 
to-day, Thy spirit has been flowing through our 
spirits. 

People — We believe in Thy omnipresent 
life; Thy constructive mind has been 
within us, and while we have waited 
here, Thou hast been building our bodies 
in strength and perfection. 

Leader — Thou art within us, a fountain of life 
flowing into every cell and every organ of our being. 

People — Thou art God within our 
natures, and Thy life has power to re- 
generate and heal my body. 

{Wait in silence) 

Leader — I praise Thy tender harmonizing love, 
which has been with us and in us while we have 
waited here together. 

People — O living, loving Father, this is 
Thy holy temple. Make it a perfect 
dwelling place from which shall radiate 
Thy healing love and wisdom, to all Thy 
children. 

(Silence) 

I 121 ] 



Leader — Bless all my world, visible and in- 
visible, with Thy harmonizing love. God is love; 
all is love. 

People — Creative Spirit, while we wait 
with the consciousness of Thy presence, 
let us feel Thy spirit flowing into our 
spirits, vitalizing every nerve in our 
bodies, purifying our sources of life, 
making every artery and vein the channel 
for life-giving blood. 

(Silence) 

Leader — With God there is no space, God is 
everywhere. He is here and in the ends of the 
earth. Therefore absent healing, "so-called," is 
perfectly rational. God is here. God is in the 
uttermost parts of the earth. Therefore v/e appeal 
for a blessing upon these, Thy children. 

(Read the names of those who desire to be blessed) 

Leader and People — Thou great healing 
spirit, who art here and everywhere. 
We invoke Thy blessing upon these, Thy 
children; whatever their need, be unto 
them a fountain of life. Gome with 
healing on Thy wings, brood over them, 
harmonize all their disturbed faculties, 
and make them well. In the name of 
Jesus Christ. 

Peace I leave with you; my peace I 
give unto you. Amen 

I 122] 



THE OPTIMIST'S SERIES 



Healing Affirmations, or Getting Well and 
Keeping Well. By George L. Perm. 

The chief purpose of this book is to furnish sample 
affirmations for mental healing, containing also discussions 
upon the bearing of fear and worry on bodily health. Also 
a few services for use in public. Limp leather binding, gold 
edges. $2.00 net. 

How I Was Healed of Paralysis. By George 
L. Perin. 

A simple personal story of his own healing of paralysis. 
This book was written to furnish hope to the vast army of 
people afflicted with this or other chronic diseases. Castilian 
cover. Price, 75 cents net. 

The Sunny Side of Life. By George L. Perin. 

A series of sermons preached by Dr. Perin and meant to 
drive Auntie Doleful from her throne. Cloth binding. 
Price, $1.50 net. 

Why, Fadder, Why ? By George L. Perin. 

The meaning of this simple little story is obvious. It is a 
repetition of some of the questions of an average boy, with a 
few reflections upon the larger relations of older people who 
also ask questions. Cloth binding. Price, 35 cents net. 

I 123] 



THREE BOOKS BY 
FLORENCE H. PERIN 

PUBLISHED BY LITTLE, BROWN & CO. 
34 BEACON STREET, BOSTON, MASS. 

The Optimist's Good-Morning 

Here is a ray for every day, sunlight for every dark 
hour. — United Presbyterian, 

The Optimist's Good-Night 

" The Optimist's Good-Night " is full of good things. A 
draught from these sweet waters at the close of day should 
make a good sleeping potion. — Rev, Henry Van Dyke, D.D. 

Sunlit Days 

Some one came to me the other day in much dis- 
couragement, and I sent her a copy of "Sunlit Days." I could 
think of nothing better to give her cheer. — Paul Revere 
Frothingham. 

Cloth, $1.50 net. Limp morocco, $3.50 net. 

Any of the foregoing books will be sent upon receipt of price, 
postpaid. 

THE OPTIMIST PUBLISHING COMPANY 

BROOKLINE 47, MASS. 

[ 124] 









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